melanie wrote:A vast majority of people today are married in a civil ceremony, that is what a marriage license is; a state sanctioned license.
The presumption that two people wanting to pledge their life long commitment to each other would even want to do so in a forced religious ceremony by a pastor/priest who views it as an abomination is rather ludicrous. They have their families and friends gathered to celebrate a union, with the same intent as any other marriage to create a positive and lifelong memory.
People who are gay and wanting to marry are not doing so to mock the religious sanctity of marriage but rather to have the same legal rights under the marriage law.
This has major ramifications for property, inheritance and the legality of estate.
A good friend of mine was retelling me an encounter she had with two of her clients, one in his 80's the other early 70's. The more elderly gentlemen had suffered two strokes and a heart attack, he required 24 hour care. His partner of almost 40 years had been the primary carer.
Her job is to evaluate and allocate additional services for the elderly and a cousin who had previously had no interaction with her client was claiming power of attorney and was advocating for him to be put into a nursing home.
A 40 year committed relationship, of which the last 7 his partner had bathed and fed, clothed, loved and taken him to every appointment was being not only left out of key care decision for his partner but four decades of a shared financial life story was questionable.
This was just 2 weeks ago and she said that beforehand she wasn't too thrilled or much on board with gay marriage but this experience changed her perspective. Not that she agreed necessarily but from being involved it was without question to her who had loved this man and who legally had his best interests at heart, medically and otherwise. Point of interest they had several charities they were passionate about and that was where majority of their estate was left (animal conservation).
At the forefront of the gay marriage debate is people. Son's, daughter's, nephews, grandchildren and grandfathers and everything in between. We can disagree but to totally negate the commitment and love as not being the reason why they want the right to marry and to degrade it as nothing more than a plight to destroy the institution is wrong.

She pulls at my heartstrings ... Shoving that 1% of 1% exception to the rule in my face..

Marriage is defined by the church. LGBT is not satisfied with paper marriage. The goal is forced church marriages... via removal of tax exempt status.

This is a state/provincial issue in Canada, even though the Canadian Federal courts have stated that religious organizations and their representatives can NOT be forced to do things contrary to their religion as this violates the freedom of religion act in Canada.
After stating that, the supreme court added:

3. Does the Proposed Act Provide Protection for Religious Officials Who Do Not Believe in Same Sex Marriage?

The Supreme Court then attempted to address the argument that the Proposed Act might create an impermissible collision of rights between the rights of same-sex couples who want to marry and the rights of those who are against same sex marriage because of their religious beliefs. Intervening parties pointed out that this conflict would be particularly acute for clergy and other religious officials who do not believe in same-sex marriage and do not want to perform them. The Supreme Court's response to this was as follows:

The right to freedom of religion enshrined in s. 2(a) of the Charter encompasses the right to believe and entertain the religious beliefs of one's choice, the right to declare one's religious beliefs openly and the right to manifest religious belief by worship, teaching, dissemination and religious practice: Big M Drug Mart, supra, at pp. 336-337. The performance of religious rites is a fundamental aspect of religious practice. It therefore seems clear that state compulsion on religious officials to perform same-sex marriages contrary to their religious beliefs would violate the guarantee of freedom of religion under s. 2(a) of the Charter. It also seems apparent that, absent exceptional circumstances which we cannot at present foresee, such a violation could not be justified under s. 1 of the Charter [emphasis added].15

However, the Supreme Court noted that since the federal government has no constitutional authority to regulate the solemnization of marriage, it would be up to the provincial governments to pass legislation that would protect the rights of religious officials to not perform same sex marriages if this is contrary to their beliefs, while at the same time allowing for same-sex marriage. The Supreme Court also commented that the provincial human rights commissions should interpret their human rights codes in such a way as to provide protection for religious freedom in this regard. Therefore, it may be some time before the practical extend of the protection provided by this decision to religious officials who do not support same sex marriages is known, and may ultimately require that human rights challenges be brought by those who feel that their religious freedom is being limited.